'A Dingy Ill-Famed Den'
The Black Hand of Set: Chapter 14 of Robert E. Howard’s Hour of the Dragon
© 2021 James LaFond
FEB/6/21
Reading from pages 190-196 of the DelRey edition
Impressions by James LaFond
The opening illustration presents a horror started man with a black hand imprinted on his bare chest as he lays still in death on a shadow-cast floor.
“Conan woke from a sound sleep as quickly and instantly as a cat. And like a cat he was on his feet with his sword out before the man who touched him could so much as draw back.”
That’s Robert E. Howard on PTSD before it had a diagnosis.
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predation

barbarism versus civilization

triumph

night city

the first boxers

all-power-fighting

fiction anthology one

by the wine dark sea

broken dance

let the world fend for itself

cracker-boy

the sunset saga complete

z-pill forever

menthol rampage

logic of steel

son of a lesser god

dark, distant futures

sorcerer!

taboo you

the gods of boxing

the year the world took the z-pill

thriving in bad places

the combat space

when you're food

america the brutal

orphan nation

logic of force

your trojan whorse

song of the secret gardener

on combat

into leviathan’s maw

the fighting edge

blue eyed daughter of zeus

the lesser angels of our nature

masculine axis

book of nightmares

under the god of things

the greatest boxer

honor among men

advent america

the greatest lie ever sold

winter of a fighting life

on the overton railroad

within leviathan’s craw